Norma J. Kriger – författare

Zimbabwe's guerrilla veterans have burst into the international media as the storm troopers in Mugabe's new war of economic liberation. In this book, Norma Kriger gives the unfolding contemporary drama a historical background, and shows continuities between the present and past. Between 1980 and 1987, guerrilla veterans and the ruling party colluded with and manipulated each other to build power and privilege in the army, police, bureaucracy and among workers. Both relied chiefly on violence and appeals to their participation in the anti-colonial liberation war as they sought to vanquish their then political opponents. Today, violence and a liberation war discourse continue to be salient as Mugabe's party and its guerrilla veterans struggle to maintain power through land invasions and purges of a new political opposition. This study gives a critical review of guerrilla programs and the war-to-peace transitions literatures, thus changing the way we view post-conflict societies.

Studies of revolution generally regard peasant popular support as a prerequisite for success. In this study of political mobilization and organization in Zimbabwe's recent rural-based war of independence, Norma Kriger is interested in the extent to which ZANU guerrillas were able to mobilize peasant support, the reasons why peasants participated, and in the links between the post-war outcomes for peasants and the mobilization process. Hers is an unusual study of revolution in that she interviews peasants and other participants about their experiences, and she is able to produce fresh insights into village politics during a revolution. In particular, Zimbabwean peasant accounts direct our attention to the ZANU guerrillas' ultimate political victory despite the lack of peasant popular support, and to the importance that peasants attached to gender, generational and other struggles with one another. Her findings raise questions about theories of revolution.